Every Child a Wanted Child
by Elizabeth Culmer
Summary: Jade English never expected to have children, let alone grandchildren. She has her company, her allies, and her fight against Crockercorp to fill the void left when her brother refused to run away with her. Then she rescues a baby from a meteor crater and finds herself rearranging her life. (Alpha Timeline Fluff, part 2)


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Andrew Hussie. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** This was written for Cotton Candy Bingo (a Dreamwidth fanwork bingo community dedicated to fluff) in response to the prompt: _grandparents / grandchildren_.

I freely admit this fic is actually as much angst as fluff, but the alpha universe is inherently angsty and screwed up. Good things are always conditional and temporary. Also! This is another Jade-and-Dave-are-best-friends fic, because _somebody_ has to run counterprogramming to all the Dave-only-cares-about-John stories floating around the internet. *wry* (Besides, _Jade_ is the one who fought against the Condesce, not John. Even if Dave and Rose know John via entertainment industry connections, they're obviously going to be closer to the person who founded the resistance movement to which they devote their lives and deaths.)

**Summary:** Jade English never expected to have children, let alone grandchildren. She has her company, her allies, and her fight against Crockercorp to fill the void left when her brother refused to run away with her. Then she rescues a baby from a meteor crater and finds herself rearranging her life.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Every Child a Wanted Child**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Congratulations, you found a baby," Dave says the second he picks up the phone, before Jade can so much as say hello.

Jade sighs and glances at the tiny figure resting on her motel bed, bundled in an oversized green wool sweater. The flintlock pistols he'd been holding in the meteor crater are shut in a dresser drawer on the other side of the room where he can't possibly hurt himself the way he was about to before she untangled his pudgy fingers from the triggers. "Rose saw this," she says. It's not a question.

"One bundle of joy for you, one for John in six months," Dave agrees. "He won't get to enjoy his, though. Little lady's gonna land right on his damn fool head."

Jade closes her eyes, remembering the last time she'd tried to tell her brother of the battle raging behind the superficial pleasantry of their world. He'd simply laughed and told her she should stop making her business troubles so personal.

"Is there any use warning him?" Jade asks.

Silence. Dave takes a deep breath, and Jade imagines he's taking off his ever-present sunglasses - youth and Hollywood combined have given him such silly affectations. "No," he says. "Even if he'd believe us, that shit's a heat-seeking missile, locked and loaded. We're all dead men walking if the Baroness has her way. He just gets to check out before things really go to hell in a handbasket."

"Language, Mr. Strider," Jade says.

He laughs, short and sharp. "Sorry, granny. I'll work harder to protect your virgin ears."

"Virgin? Oh, I wouldn't go _that_ far," Jade says, letting her voice drop to an exaggerated purr. This time Dave's laugh is brighter. "But if you curse every other sentence," she adds, more soberly, "you'll empty the words of their power and you won't have any meaningful curses left for when you truly need them. And trust me, you will need them."

"I don't need to be Rose to know you're right," Dave agrees. "But enough of this depressing crud. You're keeping him, right?"

Jade closes her eyes. "I shouldn't. I have every reason not to. I'm too old to care for an infant. I'm a target and so is anyone close to me. I have no fixed address. My company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy."

"I hear a 'but' lurking in the wings."

"But I can't help feeling that he's mine, that he and I were meant to be family," Jade confesses. "Do you think that's a warning sign of dementia?"

"Fu- fudge, no. You're gonna be sharp as a laser until the day you kick the bucket," Dave says. "If you think he's yours, he's yours."

"Rose concurs?"

Dave makes a rude noise. "Who cares about that predestination stuff. If you didn't want him, I'd say screw the future. Keeping a kid for duty or money or because you think it makes you look pious and shit? Fuck that noise. Kids know when they're not wanted."

Dave knows that from experience, Jade reflects. So does Rose. So does she. (So did John, she assumes, even if he's buried that knowledge. He's certainly worked to be a model father to his own son. She hopes the meteor child who kills her brother will find a loving home with her nephew despite their continuing entanglement with Crockercorp.)

"So, you picked a name for the rugrat yet?" Dave asks.

"Nothing definite. I want something short and serviceable, a good traditional name," Jade says. "I thought perhaps Jack."

"No! Not Jack. _Never_ Jack." Dave's voice cracks like a whip despite the static on the line, urgent in a way she's rarely heard him.

"Why not? It's a fine name."

"Just... trust me on this, that is not a name you want to saddle that kid with. How about Jake?" Dave offers. "Short, snappy, starts with a J."

Jade can't see why a long vowel rather than a short one makes such a difference, but now that she thinks of it, Jake is a good name. A bit adventurous, but not above scruffy knees and a keen sense of humor. "I like it," she says. "Jake English it is."

"Awesome. I expect pictures, of course," Dave says. "Kid's my nephew by proxy or some shit like that. It's my solemn duty to spoil him rotten."

Jade laughs. "I fear for the results. But I'll be sure to stop by California within the month. I can't wait to see you try burping him or changing a diaper."

"You doubt my ability to defeat a tiny, whimpering diaper-crapping machine, Ms. English?" Dave asks.

Jade looks back at her newly named grandson, sleeping peacefully in his makeshift blanket. She bought a pack of disposable diapers, a bottle, and some powdered formula from a local supermarket this afternoon, but that's only the tip of the mountain of supplies she'll need to purchase if she intends to keep this child - to say nothing of finding a more permanent home base, babyproofing it, making plans for education and gun training, and perhaps finally dissolving SkaiaNet and finding a less expensive and more effective way to continue her fight against Crockercorp.

"I think babies defeat us all," she says, "at least if defeat is construed as forcing us to reexamine our goals and abandon our selfish pride."

"You, selfish? And the Baroness is made of sweetness and light," Dave scoffs.

"If I hadn't made my opposition to Crockercorp so blatant, perhaps I could have won over more of the doubters," Jade admits. "But I was young and proud, and I assumed the truth would be enough to convince people to join the fight. I didn't understand how thoroughly she'd lulled the world to sleep. You and Rose should really stop associating with me. You have a far better chance of flying under her notice than I ever did, even before I spit in her metaphorical face."

"Maybe we're genius undercover saboteurs like that," Dave says. "Or maybe we're just congenitally convoluted and prone to bullshit and doubletalk. God, can you imagine me or Rose saddled with a baby? We'd screw them up so bad their grandkids would need therapy."

Jake gurgles in his sleep, one pudgy fist clutching awkwardly at the edge of the green sweater. Jade wonders how old he is. He was sitting upright in the crater and he has enough manual dexterity to hold those dual pistols, but he's only just over two feet from head to toe, not much larger than a newborn. She doesn't know why that discrepancy nags at her so much, given the impossibility of the entire situation. Perhaps alien meteor babies develop faster than normal children. They must be tougher in order to survive the heat and acceleration of reentry.

She wonders where he acquired glasses and a diaper. Somehow those bother her more than the pistols.

"I think you would be a better father than you give yourself credit for," Jade tells Dave, cradling the telephone between her shoulder and ear as she sits beside her grandson and rests one hand on his ink black hair. The texture is almost exactly like her own, thick and coarse. That will add verisimilitude to her story about a long-lost child who died unexpectedly and left this baby to her.

"Doesn't matter. I won't get the chance," Dave says.

Jade's hand stills on her grandson's head. "Rose again?"

"There are four kids, but something went wrong with the meteor pitching machine. Yours and John's are on time. Mine and Rose's are gonna be about four centuries late," Dave confirms. "We're working on plans for shelter, food, and lessons, but I have no clue if it'll be enough. Especially if we don't manage to melt the witch before she fucks up the world beyond repair."

"I'll help," Jade says firmly. "There are ways to encapsulate structures, or to treat materials to ensure they withstand the ravages of time. And you can learn from my inevitable mistakes with Jake how to teach your children from a distance."

She'll have to homeschool him, of course. Even ignoring the Crockercorp propaganda that floods every public and nearly every private school in the country, anyone claiming kinship with Jade will be far too much of a target to venture out unguarded. Hiding in a house under siege is no way for a child to live, though.

Perhaps she should leave America altogether. There's an island in the Pacific with mysterious ruins Jade has been meaning to investigate. It shouldn't be too hard to build a house there and liaise with the resistance via radio and satellite telephone.

"We'll take you up on that offer," Dave says. "Every little advantage helps, and we have to learn how to talk to kids somehow. Might as well practice on your bundle of joy." He sighs. "It's not the same, though. What the hell kind of childhood will they have without anyone waiting to... you know..."

He never says the word. Neither does Rose. But Jade knows they love her as much as she loves them. She knows they would love their timelost meteor children as much as she finds herself falling in love with Jake.

Her grandson gurgles and flails his fists again. Jade scoops him onto her lap, sweater and all, and strokes her fingertips along the curve of his cheek. "It's not the same," she agrees. "But I can't imagine that they won't realize how much you care. What other emotion is strong enough to withstand four hundred years?"

Jake blinks and yawns, showing pink, toothless gums and brilliant green eyes just a few shades darker than her own. Her hair has fallen over her shoulders, and he stretches his fingers upward, trying to grasp and tug on a handful of tangled strands, bleached pure white by time and suffering. Jade offers her fingers instead and smiles helplessly when he pulls her hand down and begins to suck on her pinkie.

"He's being cute at you, isn't he," Dave says, breaking what Jade suddenly realizes was nearly a minute of silence.

"He's attempting to eat my fingers," she says.

"Jesus Christ, he's a zombie, run for your life," Dave deadpans. "But seriously, congratulations. And congrats to him, too - that kid has no idea how lucky he is to get you for his granny."

"If I'd met you and Rose sooner-" Jade says.

"Water under the bridge, quit angsting and let the trolls hunt their billy goats in peace," Dave interrupts. "We're fine, our freaky alien future babies will be fine, John's accidentally murderous sweetheart will be fine. You worry about little Jake and yourself. He's gonna do amazing things when he grows up and I want you to be around to watch."

"I love you too, Dave," Jade says, and hangs up before he can start his reflexive protests and self-mockery.

Jake whimpers and sucks harder on her fingers. "I bet you're hungry," Jade says. "Are you hungry? You need to eat well, so you'll grow up healthy. I want you to be strong and brave, to be free to do whatever makes you happy, no matter how sick and dangerous my stepmother tries to make your world. I'll die before I let her hurt you." Jake blinks his big green eyes at her, and Jade laughs. "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you? That's okay. I'll tell you I love you every day, until you're old enough to be embarrassed and even after that. That's a grandmother's prerogative, young man, and I intend to take full advantage of it."

She stands and prepares to jerry-rig the courtesy coffee-maker into heating him another bottle. That's all she can do for Jake tonight, and in truth, she can't promise to do much more tomorrow.

But she can fight to make the world he inherits be a world worth living in. She can fight _for_ her grandson's future, not just against the pain and betrayal of her past.

For the first time in over a year, Jade feels the stirring of hope.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


End file.
